Time was, acts flocked to South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, in hopes of getting that Big Break.
By the mid-’90s, SXSW had become the music industry’s foremost gathering of everyone from honchos to wannabes. As it exploded in popularity and influence, the festival organizers increasingly shut out unsigned acts. Six years ago, WMNF DJ Lee “Flee” Courtney and some cohorts formed BAAMO (Bay Area Arts & Music Association) with the notion of putting on a rogue showcase of Tampa Bay bands at SXSW. They dubbed it Bandango.
Over the years, the unsanctioned show — one among many in the city during SXSW — scored very little in the way of tangible success, but the participants sure had a good time.
The BAAMO formula hasn’t changed much: gather the acts, assemble a compilation CD and hold a local fundraiser to cobble together some cash for the trip. This year’s CD is particularly impressive. Titled Cheatin’ Heart: Tales of Lies and Love, it’s a collection of mostly fresh recordings by Tampa Bay’s top artists that vibrantly showcases the talent here. The disc will be sold Saturday at the One for the Road 3 fundraising concert at Dave’s Aqua Lounge in St. Petersburg.
This year’s Bandango takes place on March 12, the afternoon before the official start of SXSW. The Ditchflowers; Have Gun, Will Travel; Lorna Bracewell; Ronny Elliott and Rebekah Pulley (performing as a duo); and Giddy-Up, Helicopter! are confirmed to rep Tampa in Austin. Each act contributed tracks to Cheatin’ Heart, with all of them except Giddy-Up, Helicopter! playing Saturday in St. Pete. It’s a show anyone with even a passing interest in the local music scene should attend.
Cheatin’ Heart will be mailed to AAA, college and community radio stations like WMNF across the country, as well as being available at SXSW. “The reason I do this is because as a DJ at WMNF I get 150 to 200 CDs a week — mostly all from local musicians from other towns — and I listen to about 90 percent of them, and they’re no better than our bands in Tampa,” Flee says.
The 12-year station veteran has invited writers and radio programmers from across the country to attend Bandango. Throughout the course of the day, as many as 700 people are expected to pass through the doors of the Yard Dog folk-art gallery on Congress Avenue. The industry types will be lured by free beer, alligator chili, Cuban bread and hand-rolled Ybor City cigars. The hope is that they’ll see a band and then return to their sphere of influence and hype it.
In this time of declining CD sales and the proliferation of free online music, what kind of real results can Bandango deliver? Sure, it’s possible a label rep will saunter in, be blown away and whip out a pen. But increasingly that calls for the kind of serendipity only found in fairy tales. More realistically, perhaps a Bandango act will catch the ear of a show booker who can put together a string of dates in, say, North Carolina. Besides, so what if the odds are long? That doesn’t mean you stop trying.
“Sure, maybe it’s not what it used to be,” Flee says, referring to SXSW’s early years when unsigned acts had a better chance at being spotted. “But the place is still crawling with people in the music business. If you’re going to make a contact, where else is it going to happen? Really, there’s only six opportunities in the country throughout the year where you can go and run into someone who recognizes your talent and can help your career.”
Rebekah Pulley’s Cheatin’ Heart contribution, “Watching You Go,” is a track from an upcoming album. A clever lyric about lost love set against a sparse, roots arrangement buoyed by a poppy melody, it’s the catchiest song the singer/songwriter has recorded. Perhaps a listen by one of the powerbrokers being invited to Bandango could open the door for Pulley’s new album to get wider distribution. Her past two performances at the showcase resulted in airplay on radio stations as far away as Canada and California (and the CD sales that inevitably follow). But Pulley’s not counting on having anything but a good time in Austin.
“I don’t like to be disappointed,” she says. “I look at it as going to have fun. I don’t want too high expectations — it’s so rare that anything really good happens with so many bands there.”
Also included on the compilation is The Beauvilles’ “Lips (Fourteen)s,” which will appear on an album the alternative rockers plan to have ready for Austin. The quartet played last year’s Bandango, but it was an unscheduled street-corner performance that garnered the greatest exposure, landing a picture of The Beauvilles in Rolling Stone. This year, The Beauvilles scored an official SXSW gig and will also stop by Bandango to show support — and play if the opportunity arises.
“We expect to have a good time and be seen by an enormous amount of people,” says frontman Shawn Kyle Beauville. “We have a secret plan; we’ll see how it works. It’s definitely not within the boundaries of city code.”
Beauville’s thoughts on SXSW echo Flee’s and Pulley’s: Make the trip knowing that a big, rowdy party awaits you in Austin, and hope for the best.
“There is that chance of lightning striking there,” Beauville says. “[And it’s] greater than anywhere else in the country during the course of the year.”
This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 5, 2008.
